


A JURY OF HIS PEERS

by spicyshimmy



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-28
Updated: 2011-08-28
Packaged: 2017-10-23 03:34:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/245846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicyshimmy/pseuds/spicyshimmy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wild West AU, as requested by thessilian @ tumblr. <i>He didn’t like the coyotes; he didn’t like the scorpions; he didn’t like the dust in the cracks of his boots or clogging his throat, the sunburn on his nose, and he sure as shit hated the detour they took to chase down Evet’s Chain Gang just the two of them, with Anders’s wrists still tied to the pommel of his saddle and the sheriff’s twin ivories blazing.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	A JURY OF HIS PEERS

It wasn’t that Anders didn’t like the horse.

If that’d been the case—if it’d been that simple—then he’d’ve been fine the whole trek from Wildervale back to Kirkwall, even with all the stops they made along the way. He didn’t like the coyotes; he didn’t like the scorpions; he didn’t like the dust in the cracks of his boots or clogging his throat, the sunburn on his nose, and he sure as shit hated the detour they took to chase down Evet’s Chain Gang just the two of them, with Anders’s wrists still tied to the pommel of his saddle and the sheriff’s twin ivories blazing.

 _Carver_ and _Bethany_ , he called them. He was that kind of guy—that kind of sharp-shooter. The one who talked to his pistols, and made his prisoners ride side-saddle on a horse named Dog.

‘Always wanted a dog,’ the sheriff explained, tipping the brim of his hat. His throat was burned, red underneath his stubble; he wiped it with an even redder handkerchief, _G.H._ sewn into the corner by some dainty white hand. A wife, maybe. Or a mother. But definitely not the saloon girl who locked her legs around his waist and said, ‘Where you _been_ all this time, stranger?’ when they finally rode into the dustbowl known as Lowtown, putting off their trip to the local gallows so the sheriff could wet his throat and kick his feet up, and shoot the shit with the barkeep.

He flirted with the saloon girl, not to mention.

He was that kind of sheriff.

And Kirkwall was that kind of city: too big for its britches, they’d say, but not big enough for all the miners looking for gold, for all the extra hands that needed work, the extra mouths that needed feeding. Just big enough for one tycoon to wrangle all the cattle nearby, too, and to brand anyone with her irons when she caught them trying to poach her property.

‘Well, Doc,’ the sheriff said, tipping a bottle of something dark and mean into a second shot glass before sliding it Anders’s way, ‘I guess this’ll teach you to try your brand of justice in this city.’

Anders didn’t have to wonder if that golden firewater was meant for him. He adjusted the spectacles on his nose—ginger around the broken lens after the tussle with Evet—then figured he needed to be drunk more than not. ‘Because Kirkwall has the finest sheriff this side of the Vimmark mountains?’ he asked, only a little tetchy.

It was always hard to pick up a glass and knock it back when your hands were hobbled, when you were lassoed good and proper like a stubborn calf that kept wandering off the trail. Maybe that was who he was and maybe it wasn’t, but Anders still wanted his drink.

The sheriff watched him, hat off, hair mussed over the deep, dirty laugh-lines creasing his brow, then took a pull straight from the bottle, running cracked fingers over his badge. The metal wasn’t polished, but it caught the midday light just fine, and it got the point across all the same.

 _HAWKE_ , the badge read. G. Hawke, Anders suspected, if the initials on the handkerchief could be trusted, and didn’t belong to a lost brother or father he’d buried somewhere in the hard Kirkwall earth.

‘No,’ the sheriff said, his voice deeper now, stained with liquor. He leaned close, so close Anders could see the dark hair on his throat, the quirk of his mouth against the beard, and the pulse that beat out even time, slow and steady as the day itself. ‘Because justice doesn’t belong in a town like this one.’

*

‘What’re you bringing him in for, anyway?’ the saloon girl asked later, joining them for the fourth or fifth round. She wore more jewelry than Anders’d ever seen in one place or on one person, but the way it looked on her, he didn’t much care whether or not any of it was real.

It was still early afternoon; there was still time for Anders to make a run for it, if he wanted to chance those twin pistols the sheriff kept patting, in between drinks. But the place wasn’t crowded enough yet for some good, old-fashioned chaos, just the three of them and the barkeep, and a dwarf tickling the ivories in the corner, wearing a bowler hat and carrying a golden shotgun.

No room in this town for justice, Anders thought, but room for a dwarf with a bowler hat.

Leastways, he didn’t take up much space.

The saloon girl leaned closer, trying to peg him for a bank robber or maybe a killer in cold blood. She didn’t smell like perfume—if Anders had to pinpoint it, he’d say she smelled of the sea, a hot breeze stirring the foam and the salt, while the sheriff was all sawdust and sweat and sour shots, whiskey breath lazier than his whiskey grin.

‘Helping people,’ the sheriff said. ‘Sorting out refugees. Stealing from Meredith to feed ‘em, too, I suspect.’

‘Who knew crime could be so _scruffy,_ ’ the saloon girl said.

‘I killed a man,’ Anders added, voice thick and tongue heavy, words disturbing only his drink. A few ripples after he fell silent meant his hand was shaking, same as it hadn’t when he’d done the deed—but he was drunk now, and that made a man unsteady the same way murder didn’t. It had nothing to do with absolution, and even less to do with regret.

‘…And he killed a man,’ the sheriff agreed.

‘Not exactly unusual around these parts, is it?’ the saloon girl said, pouring Anders another drink.

The sheriff reached for his hat, pressing the sun-streaked brim between thumb and forefinger, but he made no move to put it back on again. ‘He killed one of _Meredith’s_ men,’ he said.

‘I killed one of Meredith’s men,’ Anders agreed.

‘Oh, _silly_.’ The saloon girl sounded sorry for him. Anders knew she was the only one, and besides which, it wouldn’t last. It was all he had, no pardon and no pleasure, and a shot glass streaked dirty, half-empty against his palm.

Half-empty was better than all-empty. But not by much, these days.

‘Any last words?’ the sheriff asked. ‘You know the whole damn trip, chasing him down to Wildervale and back, this bastard wouldn’t even tell me _why_ he did it?’

Anders almost laughed. It came easier now, slicked with liquor—which might’ve been the sheriff’s plan all along, only if that was the case, Anders would’ve appreciated the libations a mite sooner. ‘He kept visiting the shanties in Darktown,’ he said, milking that last drink the best he could. Each drop meant a few more seconds he had for living, unpleasant as that was, hot between the shoulders, sweat sticky some places and already dry in others. ‘Wouldn’t leave them alone. I treated so many of them, but no matter what I sewed up just ended up busted open again.’

‘And one day you snapped?’ the saloon girl asked, leaning close. Even the barkeep had stopped pretending to polish, gray rag in one hand and tall glass in the other. ‘Couldn’t take it anymore? Had to do something? Grabbed the nearest shotgun and ran after him?’

‘No,’ Anders replied. It all seemed small now, and faraway, stretched thin into nothing across the hazy line of the Vimmark mountain range. But everyone was listening to him for once, even the sheriff. And maybe that meant just one person would remember. ‘It was weeks of that, and we knew better than to make it worse for ourselves. We kept our heads down, and we let him do whatever he wanted, until one afternoon he came riding through, kicking up dust, causing more trouble than usual. He didn’t much mind who or what got in his way. And then…’

‘ _And then_?’ the saloon girl prompted.

‘And then he killed my cat,’ Anders replied.

He looked down to the bar, where not a drop of whiskey was left to wet his throat. He felt his spectacles slipping, and tucked one of the bent wires tighter around the back of his ear, hair knotting in the metal, the tang sharp as gunpowder on Anders’s fingertips when he brought them away.

‘Guess that’ll be all,’ the sheriff said finally, spurs jangling as he stood.

‘I guess it will be,’ Anders agreed.

*

It wasn’t that Anders didn’t like the horse.

But the horse didn’t like him, and the varmint bit his elbow when they stepped outside. The sheriff stopped to stretch, both hands behind his hips, making a noise as sore as Anders’s backside after so many days of riding rough country. He touched his badge again, then reached for the reins.

‘Might just say you took ill on the trip back,’ he said. ‘Snakebites sure are terrible, ain’t they? _Aren’t_ they,’ he added, and Anders knew the stitching on his kerchief was a mother’s work, not a wife’s. ‘Real sad thing when Doc took ill, too. Could help so many ‘fugees, but in the end, he couldn’t even help himself. And I wasn’t much inclined to suck the poison out for him, like he told me to. Seems to me that justice has more of a place out on those prairies than it does in Kirkwall.’

Anders swayed on his feet. The horse whinnied. The wind picked up, but died just as easy, and it didn’t do much to cool the heat, or clear any whiskey-addled brains.

‘Only problem is being proved a liar,’ the sheriff continued. ‘So the way I see it is, you might have to lay low for a while. Think you could do that for me, Doc?’

‘Maybe,’ Anders agreed. ‘But only if you untie me first.’

‘Sounds like a pretty good bargain to me,’ the sheriff said, whistling the dwarf’s piano-tune while he cut Anders loose.

 **END**


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